this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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Translating the Debian install instructions to tor network use, we have:

  torsocks wget https://apt.benthetechguy.net/benthetechguy-archive-keyring.gpg -O /usr/share/keyrings/benthetechguy-archive-keyring.gpg
  echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/benthetechguy-archive-keyring.gpg] tor://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/benthetechguy.list
  apt update
  apt install makemkv

apt update yields:

Ign:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
Ign:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
Ign:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
Err:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
  Connection failed [IP: 127.0.0.1 9050]

Turns out apt.benthetechguy.net is jailed in Cloudflare. And apparently the code is not developed out in the open -- there is no public code repo or even a bug tracker. Even the forums are a bit exclusive (registration on a particular host is required and disposable email addresses are refused). There is no makemkv IRC channel (according to netsplit.de).

There is a blurb somewhere that the author is looking to get MakeMKV into the official Debian repos and is looking for a sponsor (someone with a Debian account). But I wonder if this project would even qualify for the non-free category. Debian does not just take any non-free s/w.. it's more for drivers and the like.

Alternatives?


The reason I looked into #makemkv was that Handbrake essentially forces users into a long CPU-intensive transcoding process. It cannot simply rip the bits as they are. MakeMKV relieves us of transcoding at the same time as ripping. But getting it is a shit show.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Was MakeMKV ever claimed to be open source?

Not sure if it's exactly what you want but I've used MKVtoolnix in the past for .mkv operations, worked fine for me. And ffmpeg also works great for general audio/video stuff though I've never tried bluray -> .mkv with it.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah why TF can't handbrake just make the MKV?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

It can if you get libdvdcss and place it in the correct directory, not sure if it can do Bluray though, that's what I use makemkv for

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

For Blu-Ray it's slightly more complex (libbdplus and libaacs) plus a keydb list, but the concept is the same.

https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=176924

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Didn't know this, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Unless you want to retain the original video. HB doesn't do video passthrough unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 weeks ago

Because it’s a transcoding tool. You may as well complain it doesn’t make your dinner.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago

not sure exactly what features you need but there are

  • losslesscut
  • avidemux
  • mkvmerge and mkvmergegui

if command line is OK, ffmpeg is the most versatile and customizable and tons of support docs and question forums (superuser, stackoverflow, askubuntu) for every conceivable niche one-off operation

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

MakeMKV is non-free proprietary software. It just happens to be free while in beta, which it has been forever. There's not a lot of great free software solutions that do the same thing, in fact it's the main (or only) way people extract 4k BDs with the FEL intact.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Hopefully when it does drop out of Beta and they start charging people for activation people will be willing to crack it and use it for free.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Handbrake is designed for CPU based transcoding. You want slow CPU based encoding for archival storage.

You can mux into MKV via MKVtoolmix (available on all major platforms/linux distributions). You encode video via the x264 and x265 codecs, while I use handbrake, I do believe there are many other frontends that likely allow you to switch to GPU encode.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Huh? Since when does handbrake not support GPU encoding? I know it usually supports the Nvidia encoding backend for mkv…

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

It absolutely supports GPU encoding, it is compatible with nvenc if you don't have the flatpak variant, but the Flatpak variant can't touch your gpu

[–] ertai 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

OK I had the same problem as you and found the solution in dvdbackup + mkvtoolnix + some scripting glue + [optional step: ffmpeg/handbrake for transcoding]. My solution works but is not optimal but it works using only libre software. I'm writing a page on my website to document this libre dvd ripping setup, it is very much in progress but I will be improving it as I go, hence I prefer to point you to the page.

I had to dig around on the makemkv forum to find the source code: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=224 but I have no idea how recent that is and the developpers are only giving the minimum source out of obligation from the GPL. They litteraly wrote "GPL is cancer" in their source code. This, plus the fact that there was no clear link to the source code and that it's distributed as a tar (couldn't find a git repo) really stinks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Wow, thanks for the research and effort! I will be taking your approach for sure.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Never heard of Ben the tech guy, but that’s an unofficial repo.

The correct installation method is to make from source, as directed on the official forum. Should take about 2 minutes if you’re not familiar with building from source.

MakeMKV is not FOSS and never claimed to be.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The requested topic does not exist.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Yes it does.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I've always used this to compile it: https://gist.github.com/mdPlusPlus/b110cad4cdd920950c10dc6b5bce4dc6

But I think it's only the library that's source available and the GUI is proprietary or something like that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The 1.17.8 flatpak onward doesn't even work. Every IFO I give it comes back with 'can't read lol' - it used to work flawlessly for remuxes